Redecision therapy

Domain III · Humanistic, existential & experiential · Robert L. Goulding, Mary McClure Goulding · 1965 · California

What it is

Redecision therapy is a short-term, experiential form of transactional analysis (TA). Robert Goulding, a psychiatrist, and Mary McClure Goulding, a social worker, developed it at their Western Institute for Group and Family Therapy in California from the mid-1960s. It combines Eric Berne's script…

Format

• Redecision therapy is not a fixed session-by-session manual. It is a sequence the therapist moves through within one piece of work (often a single 20–60-minute segment in a group), repeated across sessions or workshop days. The secondary source condenses it into five stages, adapted from Goulding &…
• Typical format.

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Does it involve intense or unusual breathing? Have you been told about the medical conditions for which that is not advised?
• Is it a group, retreat or community? How do they respond if someone wants to leave or raises a concern?
• How do you and the practitioner understand what is happening, in spiritual or cultural terms? Is that a source of comfort, worry, or both?
• Does it use a device, heat, cold, water or a physical procedure? Has a medical professional checked that it is safe for you?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• Euphoria without a plan. Working: behavioural evidence outside the room.
• Shame. Do it warmly. Working: the client drops the smile and the real feeling emerges.
• Cashing in that is dangerous (self-harm, violence). Assess and protect first (see 4.14).
• Nightmares linked to trauma (PTSD). Use trauma-focused methods for these rather than enactment.
• A client agreeing compliantly, and any refusal to engage in safety planning. Both are risk signals, not reassurance.

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.